Michael A. De Leon is a graphic designer by day, but wears many hats in his off time. In 2004, after several years of covering the Spurs, he started Project Spurs, a Spurs team fansite as an outlet to provide content to Spurs fans, while continuing to write for himself and learning the ins and outs of online publishing and web design. He has since built a writing team and started a popular weekly Spurs podcast called the Spurscast.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

A Wing and a Prayer

To know inward is to have the ability to look outward. To know is to acknowledge what you do and do not have or have the knowledge for. It’s having the intellectual curiosity or need to ascertain the requisite resources to enlighten or inform. To know is to have the tried and true, the answer to the question. Knowing is after the fact.

Each year brings its own set of question marks. Some more than others and others easier to define, but question marks nonetheless. They’re questions that can’t be answered, only addressed: “Have we covered all of our bases, has this team the potential to be its own answer?” The key is to give yourself a genuine and legitimate opportunity, not guarantee an outcome.

The San Antonio Spurs managed to capture four championships over a ten-year stretch while giving themselves a genuine and legitimate opportunity to win as many as seven or eight. They had the foundation of David Robinson, the greatness of Tim Duncan, arrivals of stars in Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili and the complimentary “glue” surrounding them all along the way.

All teams have pieces to create a framework, the Spurs’ fortune came from the foundation for which theirs was built — the humility and selflessness of Robinson gave way for Duncan’s greatness to thrive undeterred, and it provided the conditions for which a system could be built. The questions could now be defined and the pieces could now be put into their rightful place. The Spurs became tried and true.

From the moment the Spurs won their first championship they knew what they had to do. They had the cornerstone and foundation in place, all that was left was to make sure the roles of an aging supporting cast could be fulfilled and-or replaced. They were able to define need by position, they knew the type of player and skill set to target. The Spurs had developed their own championship central casting.